


You, Me, You, Me

by feroxargentea



Category: Hard Core Logo (1996)
Genre: Co-Dependency, Dysfunctional Relationships, M/M, Substance Abuse, Yuletide Treat, immediately pre-canon, offscreen Joe/Billy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-20 05:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17016930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feroxargentea/pseuds/feroxargentea
Summary: “He’ll be back. Always is. When he says he’s gonna be somewhere, he’s there.”—Joe,Hard Core Logo.





	You, Me, You, Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [omphale23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/gifts).



> For omphale23, who wanted to know what Billy was doing in the years he wasn't with Joe. Thank you to cj2017 and Isis for beta.

* * *

 

Two days on I-5 in a beat-up Chevy gets Billy to LA. Night has fallen already, an hour earlier than it would have done back home, though he can’t figure out why. Doesn’t matter. The first bar he hits, he stays till they throw him out. The next one he doesn’t even remember.

A week or two passes, enough for him to get his shit together. Hard Core Logo might be finished, but Billy’s just getting started. As soon as he can stay upright without puking, he buys a clean shirt and looks up Blind Boy Studios. He hadn’t put much faith in Ed Festus’ recommendation, but yeah, they’ve heard of him. They’re excited, even. Jazzed on the gossip. Hard Core Logo never made it that big, but when they imploded, the whole West Coast heard the bang.

The thing is, Billy’s _good._ Everyone wants a piece of him; they always have. Even the sound engineer’s impressed. Blind Boy’s manager gets him to lay down a couple demos just in case, but she digs through boxes of CDs till she finds a Logo album too, and waves it at Billy, triumphant.

Session work? No problem. All he’s gotta do is turn up.

 

* * *

 

Work comes and goes, enough to pay the bills. People say “Hey, how’s it going?”, and Billy smiles at them and says nothing.

They pass on news about Joe sometimes. He doesn’t ask, but they tell him anyway.

“Got a friend, drummer of Tailspin, who did a gig with Joe Dick up in Vancouver last month. Sounded okay, he thought. Kinda rough around the edges.”

Billy shrugs. It’s not his problem anymore. What do they expect him to say?

 

* * *

 

He has a girlfriend for a while. Kind of a girlfriend, anyway. An “actress” (the quote marks aren’t hers) with three different waitressing jobs so she can drop a shift if an audition comes up. She lets him crash at her place for a few months, but she’s got ambitions he doesn’t fit into.

With Logo, when he got too hammered to stand up, one of them—Joe, Pipe, John, any of them—would clean him up, dry him out, stick a guitar back in his hands. One for all, all for one. But Stacey looks at him lying on her floor in his piss-soaked pants and says, “You know what? I don’t need this.”

Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need her either. He’s too busy working.

 

* * *

 

One night the landline in his new basement apartment starts to ring. It rings and rings, a BC area code on its display. He’s going to kill whoever passed his number on.

 

* * *

 

After a year or two, he knows where it’s worth hanging out, where best to be seen. Bars where everyone is someone, and sharing a light or a pack of smokes can be enough to get him a gig. Enough to get him more than that, too, if he wanted it, but he shrugs off all the come-ons. He’s not going to sell himself that cheap.

He gets drunk with the lead guitarist from Jenifur one time, a loudmouth who thinks he’s a big deal but can’t hold his liquor. Three hours in, Earl’s sobbing into his rye. Billy pats his shoulder and calls him a cab. One for all, all for one.

The thing with Billy is, he can be falling-down drunk but still get up and play next day. Next day, Jenifur’s due in practice, tweaking their third album of shitty chart-topping grunge. Earl isn’t there. Billy is.

 

* * *

 

The phone still rings at night now and then, BC area code. He never picks up.

 

* * *

 

Billy buckles his guitar case and adjusts the strap. On the other side of the studio’s soundproof glass, Jenifur’s lead singer and bassist are still arguing in furious dumbshow.

The sound engineer winks at Billy and flips a switch, bringing the words flooding through.

“...can’t just fuck him over,” Karla’s saying. “We owe him more than that.”

“You know what? Screw him,” Trevor says. “End of the day, it’s a business. I got rent to pay.”

“We can’t—”

“We _can._ Give the Canadian a fucking contract. We don’t need Earl.”

The engineer flips the switch back and offers Billy a smoke. Marlboro Lights, Billy notes, and files the information away for future use. 

“Earl’s just a hack,” the engineer says. “Plays by the numbers, same every time.”

Billy takes a cigarette from the pack. “That’s gotta make your job easier, though.”

“Fuck that. Guy’s got no fucking soul.” The engineer shares a grin with Billy, conspiratorial, the last two punk rockers in a world of phonies, and leans in with his lighter. “Hey, uh, I can keep my ear to the ground if you want. Let you know what’s going down.”

His smile’s a little too eager now, a little too hungry. Billy has that effect on people.

Billy lights his cigarette and leans back casually, blowing smoke at the ceiling. “Could do,” he says. “If you want.”

 

* * *

 

He’s moved to a new apartment by now, six blocks from the studio. He’s told the landlady not to give out his number to anyone, whatever their story.

He unplugs the phone at night, just in case.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t need to go looking for Earl. They’re old friends, drinking buddies; they’ve known each other forever. Billy just has to turn up and Earl will be there.

One night it somehow ends up as Yanks versus Canucks. Billy’s outnumbered, the whole bar to one. He puts on a good show, though. Earl’s got no finesse, but Billy is Oscar-worthy when he wants to be. He lines up the shots, letting the glasses shake in his hand and grasping the bar with the other, as if he’s going to fall off his stool any minute. Everyone whoops as he tips his head back and lets the whiskey slide slowly down his throat.

By three a.m. it’s not entirely an act. He hasn’t gotten this hammered since the night before he drove south. Earl is laughing like a loon as Billy lifts his last shot in wavering fingers, spills half of it, and lets the shotglass fall to the floor.

Earl’s fists shoot up, triumphant. “USA!” he yells. “USA! Fuckin’ USA!”

He almost makes it to the door before he vomits.

On Monday Billy gets the wink from Blind Boy’s engineer. Jenifur’s manager wants to see him. Earl’s back in rehab, and Billy’s up.

 

* * *

 

That evening he plugs his phone back in and stares at it half the night. It doesn’t ring.

 

* * *

 

Lollapalooza tours twenty-five cities that summer. For the last fifteen of them, Earl is too sick to go.

It’s not that Billy hasn’t done gigs before. He did a thousand or more with Hard Core Logo. Bar gigs, stadium gigs, he’s seen it all. The first one with Jenifur still blows his mind.

The crowd’s the same as ever: mosh pit full of kids, heaving and pulsing as the noise pulls them in. Karla leans close to the mic, howling and crooning, embracing the whole crowd in her fury, a hundred-decibel love affair with them all. It’s a neat trick and one that Billy knows by heart, but he used to be _part_ of it, him and Joe; the two of them up there together, on show for the crowd. Here he’s just another onlooker, an accessory at best. They need him for the music, nothing more. He stands back, hunched over his guitar, and laughs like crazy.

Afterwards Karla hugs him and kisses him on the cheek, and then he’s on his own. No one murmuring in his ear, no one pulling him aside or dragging him into a back room. He’s free to go.

Outside there’s a limo waiting to take him back to the hotel. First limo he’s ever been in. Halfway there he gets the driver to pull over, stumbles out, and throws up on the curb.

 

* * *

 

The first night back in LA, his phone rings again, BC area code. He stares at it for ten rings, twenty, thirty, until at last it falls silent.

“Fuck,” he mutters, reaching for his Marlboros. “You, me, you, me. Always the fucking same.”

He picks up the phone and dials the number.

“Hey,” he says, around his cigarette. “Missed me yet?”

 

 


End file.
